than Mexico's. In 2009, fewer civilians
were reported killed in the war zone of
Iraq than were shot, stabbed, or beaten to
death in Guatemala.
The violence can be traced to a civil
war between the state and leftist rebels, a
three-decade struggle that, from 1960 to
1996, was the dirtiest of Latin Americà s
dirtywars. More than two hundred thou-
sand people were killed or "disappeared."
According to a U.N. -sponsored commis-
sion, at least ninety per cent of the killings
were carried out by the state's military
forces or by paramilitary death squads
with names like Eye for an Eye. One wit-
ness said, 'What we have seen has been
terrible: burned corpses; women impaled
and buried, as if they were animals ready
for the spit, all doubled up; and children
massacred and carved up with machetes."
The state's counter-insurgency strategy,
known as "drain the sea to kill the fish,"
culminated in what the commission
deemed acts of genocide.
In 1996, the government reached a
peace accord with the rebels, and it was
supposed to mark a new era of democracy
and rule of law. But amnesty was granted
for even the worst crimes, leaving no
one accountable. (Critics called the pol-
icy "the piñata of self-forgiveness.") In
1998, the Guatemalan Archdiocese's
Office of Human Rights, led by Bishop
Juan Gerardi, released a four-volume re-
port, "Guatemala: Never Again," which
documented hundreds of crimes against
humanity, identifying some perpetrators
by name. Two days later, Gerardi was
bludgeoned to death, a murder that was
eventually revealed to be part of a conspir-
acy involving military officers.
Mer the peace accord, the statè s se-
curity apparatus-death squads, intelli-
gence units, police officers, military coun-
ter-insurgency forces-did not disappear
but, rather, mutated into criminal orga-
nizations. Amounting to a parallel state,
these illicit networks engage in arms traf-
ficking, money laundering, extortion,
human smuggling, black-market adop-
tions, and kidnapping for ransom. The
networks also control an exploding drug
trade. Latin Americà s cartels, squeezed
by the governments of Colombia and
Mexico, have found an ideal sanctuary in
Guatemala, and most of the cocaine en-
\
.. . \!>
. , ....-? ,
"". \ I' .
, ,) þ
\
I ",'
. .
\ ' .'
,
" , }
,
\'\
j{
4'
) . , ,
/
I
"
, ,
\
..
fl-
'Ii '
t;)
, ,
.. .
'"' "
/ .
,
(\1 b
,
,
(
"Think of this as a 'Be here now' exercise."
tering America now passes through the
country. Criminal networks have infil-
trated virtually every government and law-
enforcement agency, and more than half
the country is no longer believed to be
under the control of any government at
all. Citizens, deprived of justice, often
form lynch mobs, or they resolve disputes,
even trivial ones, by hiring assassins.
Some authorities have revived the
darkest counter-insurgency tactics, round-
ing up undesirables and executing them.
Incredibly, the death rate in Guatemala
is now higher than it was for much of
the civil war. And there is almost abso-
lute impunity: ninety-seven per cent of
homicides remain unsolved, the killers
free to kill again. In 2007, a U.N. official
declared, "Guatemala is a good place to
commit a murder, because you will al-
most certainly get away with it."
A fter Rosenberg heard that the
Musas had been shot, he rushed to
the scene. Luis Mendizábal, a longtime
friend and client of Rosenberg's, told
me, "I asked him to come and pick me
up, so we could go to the place together.
He said, 'No, no, no. fm not going to lose
any time. fm going directly.' So he went.
He couldn't believe it. Then he came
back over here, and cried, easily, for two
hours." His oldest son, Eduardo, who
was twenty-four, told me that it was only
the second time he had seen his father
break down, the first being when Rosen-
berg revealed that he was separating from
Eduardo's mother. He seemed "com-
pletely destroyed" by the Musas' deaths,
Eduardo recalled.
Though the crime was horrific, Rosen-
berg's deeply emotional reaction was sur-
prising. Musa was not a big client or
someone he knew that well. Then Rosen-
berg told his son a secret: for more than a
year, he and Marjorie had been having an
affair.
They had planned to marry, but had
not wanted to disclose their relationship
until Marjorie got a divorce. Almost every
day, they had exchanged text messages.
On March 3, 2009, five weeks before the
shooting, Marjorie wrote to Rosenberg, "I
love you like fve never loved before. And,
yes, I will marry you." A few days later, she
said, "Good night my love, my prince, my
whole life. You don't know how much I
love you, how much I adore you, and how
much I need you. You are so tender with